“Man always dies before he is fully born.”
— Erich Fromm

Denmark roared his world awake. A thunderclap bellowed from his chest. Mountains shuddered into being, and skies splintered like cracked glass. He was a titan, a colossus forged of storm and stone. He strode a battlefield ablaze with chaos. Each step was a quake that split the Hearthland’s parched crust. Dust swirled in gritty shrouds that choked the air with ash and blood’s iron tang. The Skyforge loomed north, a molten wall of red-gold fury. Its roar was a hammer in his skull, pulsing through the ember lodged in his left eye. That gold coal sizzled and whispered: See me. His foes were faceless wretches in bone-stitched hides. They scattered like chaff before a gale, and their shrieks were a shrill hymn swallowed by the wind’s howl. In his grip, a monstrous axe blazed. It was silver and gold, with its edge like molten starlight. He swung it in reaping arcs that cleaved flesh and bone, painting the cracked earth in crimson swathes. Limbs flew, bloodied and broken. A trail of ruin followed in his wake. His voice was a blast that toppled men like straw dolls, and their cries were lost to the Skyforge’s bellows.

He surged, grinning wolf-wide. A war-song erupted raw and reckless. It shook the heavens, and the air grew thick with the musk of caver hide and the sour rot of death. His sinew stretched, and his bones groaned. He swelled, towering monstrous. His boots crushed foes to pulp, and their screams became a wet crunch underfoot. On he marched. Enemies shrank to ants, and his head brushed clouds like cobwebs. The wind was a serpent’s hiss across his chest, laced with the tang of sweat and gore. Laughter sang, wild and untamed. It was a hymn to the slaughter. The Skyforge’s emberlight bathed him in a hellish glow that pulsed through his eye, gold and fierce.

The mist coiled. Laudanum’s bitter kiss flooded his throat. Sweet rot clogged his nose, a syrup that dulled the titan’s stride to a stagger. Pain gnawed. His left leg screamed, a phantom claw raking flesh, wet and throbbing, pulsing beneath the haze.

“Forgefather’s arse,” he croaked. A sardonic grin twisted his face. Cut me clean or kill me quick. His breath rasped, a wheeze through a throat parched as steppe dust. The air was heavy with blood’s copper reek and the sour stink of his own ruin. The Skyforge roared, a distant god’s growl threading through his skull. Gold light flared in his eye: See beyond.

The haze parted. Ash stung his nostrils, and the steppe’s cracked sprawl bloomed. Thorn-scrub clawed upward. Spine-weasels snarled, and their bone spurs clicked like death’s dice. A laugh rang out, sharp and wild. It was his twin’s voice: “Faster, ox!” Boots sank into dust. His sword flashed as a boar charged. Tusks slashed, and blood sprayed hot and copper-sweet. His arm was gashed. They’d roared over the kill, with sweat mingling.

A scent curled, floral beneath ash. A woman’s whisper was soft as clay, and her touch shaped him by the firepit. It faded before her face took form. Mother? It was lost to the wind’s howl.

Pain snapped. His leg’s ghost wailed, a white-hot lash where flesh once hung. The stump was a pulsing furnace beneath the mist. “Fuck this,” he rasped. Defiance curled in his voice. Death can choke on me. The laudanum’s sweet rot thickened, a cloying tide that pulsed with his heartbeat. Each thud was a drum, and the Skyforge’s roar synchronised: See us.

Sight blurred, darkness rimmed with red. But sound swelled: canvas creaked, a beast growled low, and metal clanked like a forge’s bellows.

A jolt came. Hands gripped, oil-sharp. The sting pierced the haze.

“Stay down,” a voice snapped, whip-quick. Her scent drowned the floral ghost, sharp with sweat and steel. His right eye fluttered. Her shadow loomed, circuits glinting. A steel beast snorted nearby.

"An Ironwraith," he thought, sardonic. A childhood fairy-tale come to ferry me to the forge. The mist tugged, but pain clawed. His leg’s phantom shrieked, and his chest heaved. Ribs ground with each wet breath.

Awareness prickled. The haze shivered, and hordes were gone. He stood alone, a giant on a dwindling speck. His head pierced the cloud-veil. A chill wind lashed his torso, twisting serpent-like across his skin. The air was crisp with star-dust, free of the Skyforge’s shadow-light. The pale blue deepened into marine abyss, then twinkling black studded with stars. It was a vastness unseen by generations bred under the Skyforge's emberlight. He spread his arms, drinking the cosmic sprawl. Feet lost to void, laughter wild as he revelled in the savage joy.

But a cough rasped. Panic struck, and lungs clawed for air that the void denied. He thrashed. Eyes bulged, face purpling, hands clawing his throat. Shadows crept as consciousness guttered like a spent torch. He toppled, falling into endless dark.

Denmark jolted, gasping as icy air flooded his lungs. It was a balm slowing his galloping heart. He gulped it, each breath a lifeline. Terror ebbed as his pulse steadied. The mist swirled, thick and choking, pale as death. Its tendrils curled around his battered frame. The air was heavy with blood’s iron tang. He knew this poppy mist from tavern nights, chasing whores and dragons through smoke. But this path blurred. Pain throbbed in his thigh, a dull fire licking memory: blood, a beast, the bitter kiss.

A pulse shivered. A high-pitched thrum that he felt in his teeth. It ululated into a prickling sound. Shadows stirred. Dark forms circled, fluid and menacing, like monsters in a dream-sea. One loomed, its bulk pulsing with the sound. He recoiled, limbs pinned by unseen weight. Panic spiked. The beast’s mate, come to finish me. The pulsing swelled, a tidal roar crashing over his flesh. The shape sharpened. A horse and rider charged through mist. Its flanks were molten iron, and hooves pounded a drumbeat from beyond the haze.

“Dead,” he thought. A wry grin tugged at him. Forge smith’s steed, my hall-pass. Relief warmed his veins, mead-sweet.

“Take me!” he roared. Arms flung wide, voice cracking in triumph. Then mist surged, and darkness claimed him.